BeldarBlog

Beldar on Bay vs. Steyn

InstaPundit draws our attention to an exceedingly good debate between Mark Steyn and Austin Bay — one far too detailed for me to summarize adequately here — over the prognosis for "Old Europe."

I see articulate and persuasive arguments from both sides here, with ample supporting factual data, historical context, and dynamic trends — all packaged in crisp, readable, sometimes wry prose. Each side should, and has, acknowledged genuine points scored by the other. So my hat's off to Bay, Stein, and their respective proponents here. I ultimately take the Bay side, however, for two reasons:

First, I believe that some ideas and some events are sufficiently compelling that they will probably eventually overcome Old Europe's prejudice, envy, lethargy, and denial.

The idea of freedom always staved off, and ultimately decisively slayed, the idea of communism — such that the latter's political and economic systems are now limited in their purest form to a couple of isolated backwaters, Cuba and North Korea. In 1987, one could construct crisp, readable, wry prose, with ample supporting factual data, historical context, and dynamic trends, to "prove" that communism would ultimately overtake all of Europe and eventually the world. Yet now the two-word synonym for communism, worldwide, is "ash heap."

As for events, I borrow from the language of chemistry: Never underestimate the transformative powers of a sufficient catalyst, for it can change not only the rate but the direction of a complex reaction. With no disrespect to those killed and maimed in the Madrid train station bombing, it clearly did not serve as "Europe's 9/11," or even Spain's. We're all shockingly jaded about death tolls running even into the several dozens and low hundreds, and even when the victims are school children. I'm in no way "wishing" for this, but I think it's possible that some larger, more ghastly and symbolic event, when it occurs, may have an impact on the Old Europeanist's collective thinking comparable to 9/11's on Americans'.

Second, I believe that Mr. Steyn's view overgeneralizes, and fails to recognize the way in which a change in thinking by even a modest percentage of "Old Europeanists" could produce a major swing in their countries' policies and actions.

Far from everyone in America "gets it." But prompted by the catalytic event of 9/11, just enough of us either came to understand, or else to rededicate ourselves to, the power of freedom as an ideal that should prescribe our country's national and international policies and actions. The consequences of that small (in population percentage terms) shift have been extraordinary — a muscular, ambitious, and resilient America willing to employ both bullets and ideas in a way that certainly would have been hard to imagine in, say, the Carter Malaise Days of 1979.

The basic premise of Mr. Steyn's pessimism is that Old Europeanists will continue to predominate and control countries like France, Germany, Belgium, etc. — that the tipping point is unattainable there, and that collapse is inevitable and transformation impossible. I don't think that does sufficient justice to the power of individuals — even French, German, or Belgian ones — to learn and change. And it doesn't take unanimous consent; not every molecule in the mix need undergo the chemical reaction. "Just enough" folks approve the aggressive freedom paradigm right now in the U.S., the U.K., Australia, Poland, Italy, Holand, Slovakia, Japan, South Korea, etc. Spain tipped back the other way, but by a razor-thin margin. Sure, if we're using our map colors to describe the current states' current states of affairs, we'd color France and Germany an inert ice-blue. But there's no basis to conclude that they must always be so. If you'd asked me in 1979 who America's likely boots-on-the-ground allies would be in a twenty-first century Middle Eastern shooting-and-ideological war, I'd probably have picked Britain and Australia and Israel — but Poland? Latvia? Bulgaria?

One more metaphor to complete my tangle: I guess I'm seeing the glass as not only being half-full, but its contents as being swirling; it leaks here and there, but there's also an incoming stream that gives me hope to see it become fuller. So cheers, Mark Steyn — I hoist the glass to you, but I hope you're wrong and that Austin Bay is right.

Fowl play north of the Red River

I have a feeling that the east and west coast MSM will pick up this story from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

When Oklahoma state Sen. Frank Shurden began relating his plan to put boxing gloves on roosters, a friend and former lawmaker couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Boxing chickens?" ...

[The friend] burst out laughing. "What'll they wear, Frank?

"Little bitty trunks?"

"Vests," Shurden said. One green, the other red. "With electronic sensors." ...

Most states banned cockfighting in the 1800s. The practice was illegal in Oklahoma until 1963, when a flamboyant state judge reviewed the book of Genesis and ruled that chickens are not animals. This astonishing declaration meant that fowl weren't covered under an animal fighting statute that had been adopted about the time of statehood.

In 2002, 56 percent of Oklahomans voted to outlaw cockfighting.

There's much, much more, including this bit of useful trivia: "Chicken boxing is fashioned after Olympic fencing."

Beldar and the Aviator

I haven't seen The Aviator yet, but I read with interest Harold Evans' piece in today's WSJ OpinionJournal defending the reputation of Pan Am founder Juan Trippe against impressions the movie may leave: 

If you are one of the 3.6 billion who have flown on a 747, it's Trippe, not [Howard] Hughes, who merits the raising of a turbulence-free glass.

This line prompted a personal flashback — one of little consequence to anyone else, but still very vivid for me.

As an aviation-mad child of Sputnik, growing up during the Vietnam War era in small-town Lamesa, Texas, my occasional trip to a big-city airport, and even more rare ride on a passenger jet, was huge. My third-grader heart was broken a few months after I was prescribed my first pair of glasses, when I learned that my less-than-20/20 vision doomed my fervent goal of becoming a fighter pilot, but I remained obsessed with all things aeronautic.

In the Texas panhandle, Lamesa was a fairly short drive from the mountains of New Mexico, and I learned to ski during junior high and high school through two or three weekend trips each year to the Sierra Blanca Ski Resort outside Ruidoso. Sometimes I went with my Boy Scout troop or DeMolay chapter, and a few times just with my dad. On those occasions, we came to enjoy stopping for dinner en route at a unique bistro, the Silver Dollar Bar and Steak House, plopped down on a dark stretch of road between Roswell and Ruidoso in the tiny town of Tinnie. On one such Friday night in December 1969, my dad and I were enjoying the cuisine there — "C'mon, just try the escargot, Billy!" — when we overheard four handsome, clean cut men at the next table who were animatedly swapping pilot stories. They were talking with their hands moving in three dimensions, thumbs and pinkies splayed as wings. Angles of attack! Dogfights and ejection seats and afterburners, oh my! Eavesdropping on their conversation was even more interesting than hearing adults discussing sex.

"Dad!" I whispered, "Do you think they're astronauts? Fighter pilots?"

"Well, son," opined my pa, "You could go over and introduce yourself politely and ask 'em, if you really want to know."

So I did. They were gracious about my interrupting their dinner — they probably recognized the hero-worshipping eye-gleam even through my thick glasses lenses — and they explained that, no, although they were all military aviation vets, they weren't astronauts or fighter pilots. But they were something equally or even more cool — two test pilots from Boeing and two senior instructor pilots from Pan Am. Working out of a decommissioned SAC base with long, empty runways outside Roswell, they were doing the final certification, testing, and training for a big new jet — something called a "Boeing 747." Hey, would my dad and I like to stop by the air base on our way home Sunday afternoon for a little tour?

As promised, they'd left our names with the security gate, and the two Pan Am pilots greeted us like old comrades upon our arrival. They led me and my dad to the biggest airplane I'd ever seen — unimaginably big, with this enormous odd hump on its nose! "What's the biggest jet you've been on, Billy?" they asked. "Boeing 727!" I instantly replied. "Well, son, you could park that 727 under the tail of this jumbo. Wanna come aboard, sport?"

The rows and rows of seats inside the Clipper Young America were pristine — still covered in plastic, in fact. Our hosts led us through them to the very front of the plane and gestured to the forward interior door. "Wanna check out the cockpit?" I opened it — to find that it was a coat closet. Big laughs. "C'mon, fellows, the real cockpit door is upstairs." (Upstairs? On an airplane?!?)

Soon enough they had me planted and belted into the pilot's seat, and then they started pointing out the various controls and computers and whatnot. "Same technology used in the Apollo program," said one pilot. "This aircraft can take itself off and fly itself across the continent to a designated airport without our ever touching the controls, if we'd let her, but — no, no! don't touch that! You'll take us to San Francisco!" More big laughs all around. We toured the upstairs lounge, all of the passenger and crew and maintenance and cargo areas, the whole plane — even climbed up into the wheel wells. "We'd love to take you for a spin, maybe do some touch-and-goes, but the insurance folks won't let us," they explained. "This baby won't be certified for passenger service for another few weeks yet."

None of my friends at school believed any of this when I got home, of course. I barely believed it myself.

About a month later, though, I got a postcard in the mail. The picture side showed a 747 in Pan Am's distinctive, subdued paint job, flying above the clouds. The post-mark was from London, England. "Dear Billy," read the text inscribed by one of our new friends (as best I can recall it), "I thought you'd be interested in knowing that I just captained the first commercial flight of a 747. We went from JFK in New York to Heathrow here in London. Remembered seeing you in the pilot's seat in Roswell. Thanks for the tips, they came in handy. Hope you can make the trip to London with me some day!"

Show-and-tell time at school, baby! Show-and-toldya so!

Juan Trippe would, I think, have been pleased. Howard Hughes even might have approved. But for me, that classy, thoughtful Pan Am captain will always be The Aviator.

Putting the cart out front, then euthanizing the horse

My blogospheric friend and fellow bandwidth-devourer Tom Maguire has a fine post today on which I've added a couple of comments, further to my arguments about the propriety of excusing Judith Miller and Matt Cooper from testifying to the grand jury on grounds that "no crime was committed" in the Plame affair.

Are any of these lines from The New Yorker tongue-in-cheek?

Long ago, as far back as high school, I subscribed to The New Yorker in part for its crisp and elegant prose, but mostly for its consistently funny cartoons. I allowed my subscription to lapse for many years before resubscribing.

Now I read it in part for its crisp and elegant prose and its occasionally funny cartoons, but mostly for its consistently (if unintentionally) funny political prose.

Consider, gentle readers, the following bits from the February 14 & 21 combined edition (some or all of which may be online; I'm too lazy to hunt down the links if so).

*******

From Hendrik Hertzberg's opening comment on the Iraq elections (bold and underlining mine throughout):

There are plenty of Vietnam echoes in America's Iraq adventure, especially in the corrosive effects on domestic comity, the use of false or distorted intelligence to create a sense of immediate threat, and the arrogance, combined with ignorance of local realities, of many senior strategist. But the differences are large, beginning with the nature of the enemy. The Vietnamese Communists possessed a legitimacy derived from thirty years of anticolonial struggle — against France, then Japan, then France again, and finally, willy-nilly, the United States.

Tenacity, certainly. Ferocity, absolutely. Nationalistic zeal, without doubt. But legitimacy? Later in the same piece:

Critics of the Bush Administration can take comfort in the fact that the apparent success of the Iraqi election can be celebrated without having to celebrate the supposed wisdom of the Administration. Like the Homeland Security Department and the 9/11 Commission, the Iraqi Election was something Bush & Co. resisted and were finally maneuvered into accepting.

Ah, yes. Good thing for the Iraqis that Ted Kennedy & Co. — stalwart insisters on keeping America's promise to hold elections on time, doncha remember? — managed to tame our intrinsic American imperialism. That damned cowboy Dubya prolly woulda just slaughtered all them A-rabs, paved the country over, and run a pipeline to Houston if'n he'd had his way.

*******

Next, from a short piece by Adam Gopnik [sic; surely he can find a lefty lawyer willing to do a name-change for him for free, no?], in a piece bemoaning the larger street signs installed in Manhattan around the time of the GOP convention:

It has been five months now, and regrettably, unlike the Republicans, the new signs apparently are not going to go back where they came from....

... The reason these kinds of signs are necessary at the intersections of Los Angeles boulevards is that all the avenues and streets there look more or less alike. [Ya missed a chance to knock a Red State city like Houston here, Adam.] ... New York is not a hard place to get around in. If you don't know where you are, you don't deserve to be here.

*******

In a feature article by Jane Mayer called "Outsourcing Torture":

Dr. Allen Keller, the director of the Bellevue/N.Y.U. Program for Survivors of Torture, told me that he had treated a number of people who had been subjected to such forms of near-asphyxiation [like "water-boarding"], and he argued that it was indeed torture. Some victims were still traumatized years later, he said. One patient couldn't take showers, and panicked when it rained. "The fear of being killed is a terrifying experience," he said.

One presumes that Dr. Keller's PhD may be in the subbranch of philosophy known as "Tautologies" (with minors perhaps in "Bleeding Hearts" and "Blind Moral Relativity"). Interestingly, though, millions of Iraqi voters were able to overcome their fear of being killed — and not by rain showers — to go out and vote last month. Apparently there actually are experiences more terrifying than the fear of being killed.

Later in that same piece:

But Gerhard Strate, [Mounir] Motassadeq's defense lawyer, told me, "We are not satisfied with the summaries [of testimony from Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, high-ranking al Qaeda members held in government custody]...." He added, "I don't know why they won't produce the witnesses. The first thing you think is that the U.S. government has something to hide."

Or maybe it just gives a rat's patoot about keeping American and coalition military and intelligence forces and sources alive, d'ya think? Or continuing to catch and punish the terrorists? Those are the first things that I thought, but then, I'm one of those soreheads who still sorta holds a grudge about 9/11. But wait, wait, there's more:

[Released suspect Hadj] Boudella's wife said that ... her view of America had changed. "I have not changed my opinion about its people, but unfortunately I have changed my opinion about its respect for human rights," she said. "It is no longer the leader in the world. It has become the leader in the violation of human rights."

Mr. Rove, cue the crowds: "U-S-A! U-S-A! We're Number One!"

*******

Then we have Nicholas Lemann's article entitled "Fear and Favor: Why is everyone mad at the mainstream media?" This one has a sweet revelation that 'splains boatloads to those of us who followed the MSM's coverage of the SwiftVets:

[WaPo executive editor Leonard] Downie had one sit-down meeting with people concerned about the Post's reporting — a group from the Kerry campaign, who had come to try, unsuccessfully, to influence a story that Michael Dobbs was working on about the claims made by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. They had sensed in advance what the piece, which appeared in August, suggested: that Kerry and the pro-Bush group had been less than candid about Kerry's military service.

"Unsuccessfully"?!? Holy Toledo. Michael Dobbs wrote one genuinely hard-hitting investigative piece on August 21st that — if you followed the jump to the back pages — squarely recognized that Sen. Kerry was stonewalling on signing Standard Form 180, and on his own personal diaries and a ship's log written by supporter Michael Medeiros. Then Mr. Dobbs either lost interest or — ahem — had his priorities reassigned for him by his editors. There was one more decent WaPo story on the SwiftVets controversies, an article not by Dobbs but by WaPo's Ann Gerhart. She obtained the most memorable quote from Doug Brinkley of the campaign season, responding to the senator's claim that his confidentiality agreement with Brinkley required him to stonewall by explaining that the papers were Kerry's property and in his full control: "Go bug John Kerry, and leave me alone." Otherwise, it seems that the "[Kerry] people concerned about the Post's reporting" managed to get WaPo to do for John Kerry what WaPo so resolutely refused to do for Richard Nixon — hush up about a cover-up.

[Chicago Tribune deputy managing editor for features James] Warren was frustrated that what seems obvious to him and his colleagues evidently doesn't to their audience. "We've done significant research with readers of the Tribune Company's three big papers, the Tribune, Newsday and the L.A. Times," he said. "There was an increasingly visceral distrust in us — a stated, increasing lack of confidence in the local papers, very consistent across the three markets. They didn't see what we were doing as materially different from local TV news — that was depressing.... They don't see any difference between an investigative reporter and a blow-dried idiot."

Ayup. That about nails it. Odd, how you can so precisely identify the consequences, yet remain so clueless about their causes, Mr. Warren.

*******

Sadly, I'm pretty sure that the only one of the lines that I've bold-faced above that was intended as tongue-in-cheek was Mr. Gopnik's. At least it produced my one genuine belly laugh that I think a New Yorker author actually intended.

There was also one terrific (apolitical) cartoon in this issue, depicting two women brunching. One remarks to the other, deadpan, "He thinks I'm a good cook in the same way I think he's good in bed." 

Well, guys, I guess I still think you're a great magazine in the same way you think Dubya is a great American.

Most wryly funny line I've read in a court opinion lately

Stories like this one (hat-tip to K-Lo on The Corner) make me glad I don't regularly practice family law (boldface mine):

A man who says his former lover deceived him by getting pregnant using semen obtained through oral sex can sue for emotional distress — but not theft, an appeals court has ruled.

Dr. Richard O. Phillips accuses Dr. Sharon Irons of a "calculated, profound personal betrayal" six years ago, but she says they had the baby through sexual intercourse.

The Illinois Appeals Court said Wednesday that Phillips can press a claim for emotional distress after alleging Irons had used his sperm to have a baby, but agreed that however the baby was conceived, Irons didn't steal the sperm.

"She asserts that when plaintiff 'delivered' his sperm, it was a gift," the decision said. "There was no agreement that the original deposit would be returned upon request."

(Originally I titled this post "Most dryly funny line ...," but I decided that may be inapt.)

This whole story is fascinating, in a repugnant sort of way. These are two physicians, fer pete's sake. Now, as a general rule I tend to like docs, notwithstanding that my ex is one. I've defended a few; I haven't (yet) had occasion to sue one; and I'm always, ummm, dryly amused that despite their carping about lawyers, doctors (in my own observation and experience) are more likely than any other professionals to dash to their own lawyers at the drop of a hankie (or perhaps in this case, a spit into a plastic baggie). I was terribly disappointed at the recent research showing that leeches actually do have some medicinal uses, because it robbed me of my favorite comeback line to grousing physicians: "While my professional predecessors were writing the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, yours were killing George Washington by bleeding him to death with leeches."

The relationship ended, the suit said, when Phillips learned Irons had lied to him about being recently divorced and was still married to another doctor.

Irons, who practices internal medicine in suburban Olympia Fields, said in a telephone interview Thursday that Phillips knew she was still married during their affair, and also knew she was pregnant with his child.

"He was very supportive and very happy about it," she said. "He said, `You need to hurry up and get your divorce.'"

He promised to marry her and asked her to quit her job, she said, but several days before her last day at work, Phillips informed her that he "couldn't go through with it."

Nearly two years after their affair, Irons filed a paternity suit and Phillips was ordered to pay $800 a month in child support, said Irons' attorney, Enrico Mirabelli.

Curious indeed, this is. Back in the dark ages when I went to law school, long before DNA testing was common, the classic example of the "irrebuttable presumption" — actually an iron-clad rule — was that for policy reasons (basically to encourage societal interests in legitimacy), a child conceived during wedlock was conclusively presumed to be the offspring of the husband. Courts would refuse to accept any allegation or evidence to the contrary — even if, for example, the husband had been sailing the Indian Ocean with the U.S. Fleet for 13 months before the child was born. I can't find the opinion online yet, but apparently that old law wasn't applied here.

I'm also curious about the main ruling of the case, permitting Dr. Phillips to sue for his emotional distress (but apparently not disturbing the paternity and child support findings). What if instead of a spit-and-switch ploy, her alleged deceit was to have told him, falsely, that she was on the pill, or that she'd had her tubes tied? Would he still have a claim? Or what if it was — gasp — merely a contraceptive failure during conventional intercourse? Would he still have a claim then? Would it matter who'd chosen the type of contraception they were using? Or who decided not to use a back-up means?

Obviously I need a consult from a genuine family law specialist to satisfy my curiosity. Volunteers? Or (reasonably nonprofane) comments from interested nonlawyers? If so, think of it as "a gift" to me.

Needs no snarky commentary

From a transcript on the White House website of press questioning today during Dubya's Excellent European Adventure:

President and President Chirac Discuss Common Values, Vision
Ambassador's Residence
United States Embassy
Brussels, Belgium

7:13 P.M. (Local)

PRESIDENT BUSH: It's my honor to be joining Jacques Chirac for dinner. I thank you for coming, sir. I've really been looking forward to this moment....

Q: The first question to President Chirac. You have said, sir, yourself, that relations have always been excellent between France and the United States. We get the sense that in recent weeks they have become even better. They have become warmer and that there's a veritable new honeymoon, as it were, taking place.

And to you, President Bush, may I ask the following question: If, indeed, relations have improved, if certainly they are better between France and the United States, are they good enough as yet for that to warrant an invitation to President Chirac to go to the United States, or even to your ranch? (Laughter.)

PRESIDENT BUSH: I'm looking for a good cowboy. (Laughter.)

(Hat-tip to K-Lo on The Corner.)

Specter as ghoul in the middle?

A regular reader from Dubya's hometown of Midland, Texas, emailed me with this link to a USA Today article quoting Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee (internal hyperlinks omitted; ellipsis by USA Today, although it's unclear whether it's to indicate a verbal pause or a deletion):

[Sen. Specter] said he hopes Bush will consult not only Republicans about the next Supreme Court nominee but also Democrats like Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Vermont's Sen. Patrick Leahy, the top Judiciary Committee Democrat. Chief Justice William Rehnquist, ailing with thyroid cancer, announced Friday that he'll miss the next two weeks of oral arguments. "My hope would be ... that there's an orderly transition at the end of the term" in June, Specter said.

One can only hope that Sen. Specter was quoted out of context here — i.e., that he's not hoping for Chief Justice Rehnquist's imminent death or resignation due to illness. As my reader wrote in her email: "I wonder how Sen. Specter would feel if the Supreme Court Justices speculated on how Sen. Specter has cancer and thus will need to be eased out at the end of the current Senate term?"

It's hard to imagine how the last paragraph of this article might have taken Sen. Specter's statements out of context, however. Rather, it appears to be frighteningly candid (ellipsis again by USA Today):

Next week, [Sen. Specter] plans to open hearings on the first of 20 judicial candidates renominated by Bush after their failure to win confirmation last year. He hopes to dissuade Democrats from filibustering. "I think I may be helpful ... as the man in the middle," he said.

Denny Crane would have no trouble pegging Sen. Specter as a "nanzy-panzy." I wish the Senator a swift and full recovery from his own medical problems. But I also wish, in the meantime, that he didn't see himself as some sort of Jim Jeffords clone. I'm fairly certain that the Senate Republicans who entrusted him with the Judiciary Committee chair expected him to at least try to actually lead it, not play "the man in the middle."

More misleading MSM spin re renominated judicial candidates

I can't resist the urge to comprehensively fisk this badly misleading editorial from Newsday. My comments are bracketed and in green:

"The president looks like he is still more interested in picking fights than picking judges." That's Sen. Edward Kennedy's reaction to George W. Bush's decision to send seven nominations for the federal bench, previously derailed by Democratic filibusters, back to the Senate for another go. [This is just short of Sen. Minority Leader Harry Reid's brand of outright lying, but likewise promotes the false impressions that either the full Senate has previously voted on any of the resubmitted nominees, or that the full complement (or even a majority) of senate Dems has previously voted in favor of filibustering any of them.] Flip that pithy observation and you've got advice Bush should heed. [Sen. Kennedy and Newsday appear to believe that the Constitution imposes on the Senate an affirmative duty to "advise and block." These fights were quite literally picked — very selectively, based on which nominees their spin and disinformation could best be adapted to wound — and are being maintained by the very small handful of Democrats on the Judiciary Committee.]

Pick judges, Mr. President, not fights.  [Pithier advice for the Dems: Let every vote be taken!]

Bush has had great success in winning Senate confirmation for his judicial nominees: 204 confirmed, 10 blocked. He should declare victory and move on to new nominees rather than refighting old battles. But instead he has renominated seven of the rejected 10 for Senate consideration. [This was a major issue in the 2004 presidential campaign, in which Dubya was indeed victorious, and in a variety of Senate races that resulted in a larger Republican majority. Having won these elections, Newsday would now have Dubya and the Republican senators who campaigned on this issue break their promise to voters. By whose estimation would that be a victory? Perhaps instead the Senate Dems should recognize defeat, and move on to new battles.]

The White House says this fight is really about nominees for powerful federal appeals courts, where the numbers are less impressive: 51 nominees, 10 filibustered. [Actually, I am impressed by those numbers. They mean that eight percent of the Senate has, all by itself, blocked almost twenty percent of Dubya's circuit court nominees, and has kept one hundred percent of the Senate from holding an up-or-down vote. Impressive indeed! But hardly admirable or consistent with the Constitution.] Bush wants all of his nominees to have an up or down vote by the full Senate which, coincidentally, has a 55-member Republican majority. [Not a coincidence at all. See above re the 2004 election; see also U.S. Constitution, article 2, section 2, clause 2, providing for a simple majority advice and consent vote.]

But the handful of nominees blocked by Democrats were too far out of the judicial mainstream or too unforthcoming in committee hearings to warrant lifetime jobs as powerful federal appeals court judges. [Sez who? A minority of senators from the minority party. If fifty-one senators, of whatever party affiliations, agree that these nominees "were too far out of the judicial mainstream" or "too unforthcoming [sic] in committee hearings," then their nominations will be disapproved. But as things have been, a handful of senators have simultaneously strangled both the presidential nomination power and the Senate's advice and consent role. It's hard to imagine anything more elitist and less small-d democratic.] By shoving them back at Democrats, Bush has chosen confrontation over consultation or conciliation. [If we're going to get alliterative here — and by all means, let's! — I'd say Dubya has chosen constancy, candor, and constitutionalism over craven capitulation.]

His in-your-face move has set the stage for a disruptive, unnecessary fight over the filibuster, a time-honored Senate tactic that is one of the few weapons available to a party in the minority. It takes 60 out of 100 votes to end a filibuster and move on to an up or down confirmation vote. [This is highly misleading. No one is trying to end the historical practice of the filibuster outright. This is an attempt to restore the filibuster to its traditional and historic (albeit extraconstitutional role), in which it was used, sometimes nobly and oftentimes not, to temper blunt majority rule. Arguably that's a good thing for one chamber of a bicameral legislature to permit. But before 2001, the filibuster was never used to block Senate votes on judicial nominees to circuit or district court benches; with respect to those votes, this is not a "time honored tactic," but a radical power-grab by a minority of senators from the minority party.]

Senate Republicans could resort to the so-called nuclear option: Their majority could pass a rule expressly barring the use of a filibuster to block judicial nominees. If they do, Democrats have promised to respond in kind by using procedural tactics to grind Senate business to a messy halt. [We could call this the "nuclear option" and the "Jonestown counteroption." Ask Newt Gingrich how well the voting public responds to comprehensive legislative shutdowns. "Vote Dem in 2006! We can't win in a fair vote, but we know how to take our football and go home!"]

This is all just a warm-up for the main event: eventual fights over Bush Supreme Court nominees. [True.] But the nation is not well served by hyper-partisan warfare over the men and women who will serve as judges for life. [Also true. See comments above about who picked the fight, and who desperately wants to use hyperpartisan means to circumvent the last election returns and the Constitution's judicial confirmation process. See also the U.S. Constitution's provision cited above re the Senate serving the nation.] Reasonable people would reason together. Republicans and Democrats should, too. [And reasonable senators, Republican or Democrat, should do what the Constitution instructs and the voters expect them to do — after "reasoning together," then hold an open floor vote to reject or confirm this or any President's judicial nominees. That's called being a United States Senator first, and a partisan Republican or Democrat second.]

Fish, barrel, rat-ta-tat-tat.

If there's no fire nor even smoke, there's always hot air — Riiiight?

The Associated Press reports that

Bill Cosby will not face charges stemming from a woman's allegation that he fondled her at his suburban mansion after giving her medication that made her woozy, a prosecutor said Thursday.

Authorities found insufficient evidence to support the woman's claims, Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. said in a statement.

But one of Dr. Cosby's hometown newspapers, The Philadelphia Daily News, breathlessly headlines its latest story with "D.A.'s dad aided Cosby's mansion buy":

MONTGOMERY County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr.'s father helped to arrange Bill Cosby's purchase of the mansion where Cosby was accused of drugging and groping a woman, but Castor did not reveal the relationship to the alleged victim or her attorneys.

"Mr. Castor did not disclose that to us or our client," said Dolores Troiani, who, with her partner, Bebe Kivitz, represents the alleged victim....

Joseph F. Lawless, author of the book "Prosecutorial Misconduct," criticized Castor's disclosure to Cosby's attorney and not to the alleged victim's attorney.

"That absolutely speaks volumes about what happened in this investigation," said Lawless. "You draw your own conclusions about what that means."

But before you "draw your own conclusions," you might want to keep reading:

Cosby bought the house on New Second Street in Elkins Park in June 1983, records show. Millionaire philanthrophist F. Eugene Dixon gave Bruce Castor Sr. the power of attorney to handle the sale to Cosby on June 8, 1983, records show. Dixon could not be reached for comment yesterday.

The elder Castor signed the deed on June 23, 1983, records show. The purchase price was $225,000, and the Cosbys paid cash, records show. Dixon and his wife, Helen, paid $275,000 for the home and property when they bought it in 1977, according to records.

Umm-hmmm. Damning stuff, that is! But closely parsed, that mumbo-jumbo about "power of attorney" means that the current DA's father — a distinguished civil probate, trusts, and estates lawyer, now age 75 — represented the seller of the house Dr. Cosby bought. Still, we're supposed to conclude that because the DA's dad represented a party adverse to Dr. Cosby in a noncontroversial real estate transaction twenty-two years ago, the prosecution tanked the current investigation.

As I remember Bill Cosby saying in the great "Noah" sketch from one of his comedy albums that I memorized as a kid and imitated ad nauseum to my friends: "Riiiiiiight!"

Friends and neighbors, if there was any remote, arguable, theoretical, speculative appearance of prosecutorial conflict of interest — "Dammit, Dad always bitched about how that TV star had outsmarted him on that house sale! It nearly drove him to an early grave! Finally, now's my chance to get even!" — it would have disadvantaged Dr. Cosby (not his accuser), and needed to be disclosed to him, if anyone.

But it's clearly a conspiracy! Look at the pattern!

Castor's failure to inform Troiani and Kivitz or their client about his father's role in the purchase of the mansion was just part of the shabby way he treated them, Troiani charged....

Lawless criticized Castor's statement, specifically his comments that "insufficient credible and admissible evidence" exists to prevail in a court of law.

"I think it was a wildly inappropriate statement," Lawless said. "It's tantamount to commenting on the veracity of the complaining witness, in my view. I think his statement is over the top. It's an editorial comment on the integrity of the evidence.

No, sir. It's a prosecutor explaining to the press how he exercised his legitimate discretion — discretion intended in part to prevent criminal charges from being brought against someone whom the prosecution concludes it cannot convict based on "credible and admissible evidence." How would (the aptly named) Mr. Lawless (who as a former prosecutor should know better) have preferred that the prosecutor announce his decision? "Well, we think he's guilty as hell, because he's a big star, after all, but we just can't prove it. Damned rules of evidence and such, that stuff lets the bad guys get away all the time. And lemme tell you about that time he snookered my dad on this house deal ...." Yeah, that would be highly professional.

Final (non)surprise: "Troiani and Kivitz said they likely will file a civil suit against Cosby in the next couple of weeks." Uh-huh. Riiiiiiight!